Day-to-Day Killings in Mexico Decline Over a Third In Claudia Sheinbaum, As per Government Data

The typical number of daily killings each month in Mexico has fallen by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, per fresh official statistics. But, public safety specialists have warned that homicide data could fail to indicate improved countrywide safety.

Marked Reduction in Daily Numbers

There was an average of nearly 55 killings a day in the month of November as opposed to roughly 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum began the presidential office in the previous September. This data was shared by the head of the nation's federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s regular press briefing on Tuesday.

“The figures in homicides that we have seen during these past months is extremely significant,” the President stated, adding that last month the smallest figure of murders were documented for any single November in the last 10 years.

Recent Background and Official Strategy

Violent organized crime internal conflicts, combined with the administration's heavily military operations to take on the trafficking organizations, have led to Mexico’s homicide numbers escalate in recent times. The figure reached a record high of 36,773 homicides in 2020, according to the country’s national statistics office.

That meant Mexico a murder rate over four times greater than the United States. Since then, murders have been on the decline, declining to 33,550 last year. Claudia Sheinbaum has credited her national security strategy for an ostensibly steeper decline in killings in the current year.

At a media briefing in August, the head of state stated: “We have a strategy, there is monitoring of the strategy, and we have specific tracking municipality by municipality in certain cases. The approach works. And we have to persist at it every day.”

The central components of the President's safety strategy involve:

• Strengthening Mexico’s national guard.
• Advancing information gathering and investigative work.
• Enhanced cooperation between various agencies.

Analyst Caution and Data Limitations

However, public safety researchers warned that relying on murder data to draw a conclusion of improved security was misleading. This is particularly true in light of the uptick in different criminal activities such as people going missing.

“This would be positive information if this were a drop, but I think we must not just focus on the homicide data and conclude: ‘Oh well, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexican organised crime. “I would be guardedly positive.”

According to the public policy analysis thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings overall declined by more than 20% in the initial 10 months of this year relative to the identical timeframe the previous year. Yet, missing persons cases have risen by 15% and in some regions have risen by as much as 200%.

“Statistics on murders is no longer useful for assessing the reality of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have police and prosecutors who do not have the resources or the inclination to correctly recognize and categorize remains. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the means to hide violence through abductions.”

Vargas added that using month-to-month averages of daily killings was also concerning because it may hide periods when there were especially spiking levels of killings.

“Relying on the daily average renders surges of violence less visible,” he concluded.

Detentions and Confiscations as Metrics of Success

An area where the administration can point to the success of its security strategy is on arrests and confiscations. Close to 40,000 individuals were apprehended between October 2024 and this past November for major crimes, according to government figures. More than 20,000 guns were confiscated and 311 tons of drugs intercepted.

“Trump can't accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because the reality is she is doing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the tactical weakening of organised crime. It’s highly in political terms beneficial,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Violence and Public Anger

Yet in spite of these measures, Mexico is still beset by high bloodshed, with several states in the throes of cartel-driven bloodshed. In the previous month there was a notable assassination of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders assassinated in the past year.

Weeks later, many thousands of protesters took to the streets in Mexico City and throughout the nation to show their outrage at corruption and cartel violence.

“The government presents [data] in a manner to build a story of safety. Politically it’s very successful, socially it’s very problematic,” the analyst remarked.